Hello, hello.
This was for my time arts class at Syracuse University. The assignment was to take a narrative script and rearrange it (mess up the order so that it did not make sense chronologically), record it as a voiceover, and then add video that ‘contrasted’ with the images a listener would picture in their brain. hmm… interesting…
Video Script:
We were supposed to go to Maine the next day and they were all worried about whether we should go or not. My face was puffed up like a basketball. But we went anyway. Everyone stared at me wondering what was wrong with me, why I looked so terribly deformed. I could only eat liquefied food for a few days, and only through a straw. Eventually the swelling in my face went down and I could manage to eat little pretzels but I had to chip the salt off because it stung horribly.
I loved playing on the swing set most of all. It was a meeting ground for all the kids. In the mornings we would sit there until everyone else came out, and then we would swing for a while, and probably swim. When we got a little older we would play pog. We even made our own little pog club. With David and Kelly, the kids from North Carolina. And at night we would play ‘night games’, again centered around our beloved playground. Sometimes kick the can, capture the flag, or jailbreak. Kick the can was my favorite. We would sit on the playground and wait until the sun went down, desperately wishing for night to come so we could start the games.
When we were back at the lake, Mr. Sullivan would always make me open up my mouth to show him my lips. He wanted to make sure they were healing fine and I wasn’t going to get big ugly scars. Luckily I didn’t. And somehow I did not fear swings.
I don’t remember hitting the ground, but from the injury I figured out that the first thing to hit was my chin. And of course my head went just a little farther, stretching my lips a little more than they should have.
I grew up on one of the Finger Lakes. My parents owned a small cottage that they kind of inherited from my dad’s parents. My mom’s parents also owned one next door, that’s how they met. It was kind of a community place; we shared a playground and a swimming area. There was also a volleyball court, campfire spots and tons of other kids to play with.
She was so nice, I remember thinking, because she let me keep the stitches in a little bag. I never did find them again. I think my mom might have promised to save them but threw them away instead because it was gross. They probably would have started to stink pretty soon anyway.
FASTER FASTER!!! I was shouting at her excitedly. She was pushing me and it was so much fun. And then she gave me the final, hardest push. I extended my whole body straight out. And out of the swing I slipped, through the air I flew, just like a real superman little girl!
One day we stopped to play in the ocean and Sean, my oldest, meanest brother splashed me with the salt water. I threw a hissyfit and probably cried for hours. I did that a lot when I was a kid. But salt water on fresh stitches does not feel nice so I thought my hissyfit was justified.
They tore open, spewing blood all over the freshly cut green grass. My scream was probably heard all the way in Hammondsport. Everyone came rushing out of their cottages to see what happened. Mr. Sullivan came out with a med kit and looked at my face, I think I remember him holding a towel over my face to stop the bleeding. My parents weren’t there because it was a weekday and they were working. Everyone followed as Mr. Sullivan (who oddly reminded me of Mr. Rogers, from Mr. Rogers neighborhood) ran me over to my grandfathers tan station wagon and layed me down in the back seat with a shit ton of towels.
I always looked up to the older girls. I thought they were so cool. They used to wear these smiley face t-shirts and I wanted to buy one so I could be cool too. Only one of them was actually nice to me. Heather was her name. Our dads used to be best friends because they grew up at Keuka Lake together, just like I did. Heather was a lot older than me. I think maybe eight years or so? She is married and has a baby now.
I think my grandpa drove ninety on little dirt road. It was about a twenty minute drive to the hospital, but it didn’t seem that long to me.
I loved spending my summers as a kid on Keuka Lake. One summer, before my first year in kindergarten, I experienced the worst physical injury of my life.
She was thirteen at the time. I was on the swing set one day and I was swinging in ‘superman style’. I was laying with my belly on the seat of the swing and pushing myself forward and throwing my arms out and yelling SUPERMAN!!! It is really fun and you should try it sometime. Heather came out of her little brown cottage and over to the swing set, where I was happily supermaning away. She pushed the swing lightly and I happily kept my body in a perfect straight line.
The time came to take the stitches out, but since we were so far from home we had to go to a doctor up there. A woman doctor. It was very clean, and I just stared at the jar with those horrible tongue depressors.
